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Avatar Went Hot: December 6, 2007 - 1:59 am
Posted By: hugoguzman 258 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://raven-seo-tools.com)
Category: Link Building
Humorous piece on how Matt's arrival affected the expert link buying panel at PubCon. I wasn't there, but I know Aaron and Rand, and I doubt that they would allow anyone to curb their discourse. Anyhow, there's a funny photo of Cutts to go along with the blog post.
18 Comments     

Comments

from sethgardner 258 days ago #
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It's funny, because he just sat in the back and the panelist were afraid to say anything of significance to the crowd. They also kept making cracks about Matt, but again, nothing of any value.

from hugoguzman 258 days ago #
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Interesting. I have personally abandoned link buying alltogether after spending years championing it on virtually every forum and to all of my virtual colleagues. I even got chummy with the folks running linkadage, textlinkbrokers, text-link-ads, etc...

I thought that they could actually help the index if they were regulated properly (only relevant text link ads, etc...) but I think that ship has already sailed.

I know that "invisible" paid links, like those embedded in written content, might still survive and thrive. That's about it, though.

from sza 258 days ago #
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Jim Boykin used to be an "under-the-radar" proponent for a long time. All that has changed now is that others also begin to see the value of prudence and precaution. (And realize that Matt Cutts is indeed a federal agent in terms of SEO, as you put it.)

If Aaron Wall and Rand Fishkin were "afraid" to talk, it just shows that even mainstream is going underground with regards to paid links. So when things settle down, basically that's all Google achieved (exactly like many predicted).

from g1smd 258 days ago #
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Why would Rand be afraid to talk? Everyone keeps on saying that he only does white hat stuff.

However, I can see why Aaron Wall would want to keep schtumm, in the light of recent events.



*** Jim Boykin stood up to give his presentation, and basically told everyone he didn't have anything to say. ***

You're kidding right?  And, the paying audience's reaction to that was...

from sethgardner 258 days ago #
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well, if that was the only session, I would have been pissed. I was certainly annoyed, but not pissed. The conference as a whole is fantastic. It's easily the best PubCon I've been to so far.

from TheMadHat 258 days ago #
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*** Jim Boykin stood up to give his presentation, and basically told everyone he didn't have anything to say. ***

You're kidding right?


Not kidding. And I'm fairly certain everyone's presentation changed since he was sitting back there. It was one of the sessions I was most interested in and it turned into total crapola.

from baiduyou 258 days ago #
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I find it hard to believe that some of the best and brightest in the search industry would view speaking at a large conference as a great way to keep a secret, then find they have to cancel their presentation because someone might be listening.

That said, I hear rumours that minutes before Matt walked into the room a 'What is said at PubCon, stays at PubCon' blood oath was taken.

from mike.tekula 257 days ago #
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I think everyone should have seen this coming.  How can it be a surprise? "*Gasp*, Matt Cutts is crashing our link buying party!" 

Clearly someone should have thought ahead and brought a kitten to distract him with just outside the conference room.  Maybe a whole box of kittens.  That would have stopped him dead in his tracks, and everyone could go about their merry business discussing their evil plans to game Google. 

from floppy 257 days ago #
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Haha, mike you're a riot. Pretty kitties.

from corey 257 days ago #
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"Clearly someone should have thought ahead and brought a kitten to distract him with just outside the conference room."

LMAO

from randfish 257 days ago #
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Ummm... I had talked to Matt last week and knew he'd be there (And I suspect Aaron, Jim & John all knew or guessed as much themselves). My presentation and Q+A didn't change substantively because of his presence. He was also not the only engineer in the room - Yahoo! and Live both had folks there, and Google had at least two other engineers I recognized on hand as well.

I think this story, while entertaining, is not quite news.

from hugoguzman 257 days ago #
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That's what I figured as well, but the out-of-context photo of Matt alone was worth the Sphinn! I tried to preface this post by stipulating that it was unlikely that any of you guys were phased by Matt, but I guess some people chose to ignore that.

from jonhenshaw 256 days ago #
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randfish: "I think this story, while entertaining, is not quite news."
Indeed Rand, this was not news, just entertainment. I still think the session was lacking overall, but I did appreciate your new solution to link buying. Whether it takes off or not, who knows.

from seorocks 256 days ago #
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Some one might be listning for sure

how we do know that there aren't more google employees specifically attending for that reason only? to gather information and feed back to the big bosses? ;)

i find it silly that they had to change their presentation just for those reasons.

from martinibuster 256 days ago #
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>>>I still think the session was lacking overall

This is not a comment about the above presenters, just about link building sessions in general. Link building sessions sometimes devolve into a rehash of things happening in the industry. Not really the tips and hints people may be looking for.

from MattCutts 255 days ago #
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So there were kittens nearby? Or not?

from hugoguzman 254 days ago #
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LOL?

from TimDineen 254 days ago #
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@randfish - "didn't change substantively because of his presence"

If true, why change anything at all?


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